


choose something like a star

by overflow



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Fantasy AU, M/M, archie is a horse here, armie is a farmer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 02:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overflow/pseuds/overflow
Summary: The leaves on the trees around him have turned black and fallen off.  The trees are charred.  The ground sizzles where he walks.And he hurts to look at, but Armie has never seen anything more beautiful.Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’





	choose something like a star

He hears his daughter scream, and he runs to her.

He barrels down the stairs, through the kitchen, out the door, but stills on the porch.He can’t see her anywhere, and their property is too large to know where to run too.She’s not in the grass, he can’t see her among the crops, so she must be in the woods.His woods are deep and dark and endless; he’ll never find her in there.

“Harper?” he calls, his voice hoarse.He’s been a father long enough to know the difference between screams of children playing, and screams of children afraid or in pain.This was the latter.

“Daddy!” she screams.

He takes off towards the woods, not knowing which direction he’s going in, not caring.He’ll figure it out when he gets in there.But before he even gets past the first tree, he spots Harper, sprinting out of the woods and into the open field, cradling her left hand in her arm.

By the time he gets to her, he’s breathless, and she’s sobbing.

“My hand,” she says, holding it out to him.The skin on her palm is exposed and blistering, an angry red where pale pink should be.He winces when he looks at it, but then breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes this is her only injury.

Armie scoops her up and starts to carry her back to the house.“How did you do this?” he asks, looking into the forest.

“The fiery man” she says, burying her face in his shoulder and sniffling.“I was trying to help him stand up, but he was too hot.”

“The fiery man?”

“Yes.”She holds her hand out to him.“Kiss it.”

Mindlessly, he kisses her palm.The fiery man?It was probably her imagination.She was probably confused.But if she wasn’t...

Well, he needed to go into the woods and find out for himself.

He finds Elizabeth in the living room with the first aid kit.She kisses Harper’s head and takes her into from Armie.“What happened?”

“She burned her hand, out in the woods.”

Elizabeth freezes.“There’s a fire out there?”

“No.”There wasn’t any smoke out there, none that he could see or smell.It wasn’t something he noticed at the time; he was too concerned about Harper, but the more he thinks about the situation, the odder it seems.

“Strange,” Elizabeth mumbles.She sets to work on Harper’s hand, rubbing aloe on it and wrapping it in a bandage.

“She said there was a fiery man,” Armie says.“That she tried to help him up, but he was too hot and he burned her.”

Elizabeth stares.“You don’t think it’s...”

“I don’t know.Maybe.”

It would make sense.There was a storm last night that was so vicious and wild that it brought both Harper and Ford into Elizabeth and Armie’s bed, crying and shaking, that it forced Archie in there too.There was a crack of thunder so loud that it even jolted Armie, and then the skies cleared.

“You better check,” Elizabeth says.“I’ll take care of Harper.”

Armie looks at his daughter.“Hops.Was the fiery man in our woods?”

She sniffles.“Yes.”

Why would he land here?

If he landed at all.This prophecy could be entirely made up.It wouldn’t be the first time.For all Armie knew, there was a small forest fire starting in his backyard that he hadn’t seen, or just some asshole carrying around a torch burning children.

Whatever it is, it hurt Harper.He needed to figure this out before it could hurt Ford, or Elizabeth, or anyone else.It was probably nothing, he told himself, but he he couldn’t shake the feeling that something here was abnormal.What could possibly have burned Harper out there?

He heads outside, walking into the woods in the direction that he saw Harper running from.He walks aimlessly, with no clues as to where to go.Whatever Harper touched couldn’t be too far, if she ran back so quickly.

She got hurt trying to help something stand up.If she’s to be believed--and Armie thinks she is; she’s smart for her age, and she’s spent her whole life running around in those woods--then this thing is alive.It’s sentient.And it’s in need of assistance.She also never said that this thing hurt her intentionally--just that it was too hot.

The more he thinks about it, the more certain he is that this is something remarkable.He finds himself getting frustrated, bored, wanting to know what this is, even if he knows it’s probably nothing, even if he knows he’s setting himself up for disappointment. _Don’t get your hopes up,_ he tells himself, but it’s too late; they’re up.How magnificent it would be to finally have something exciting happen, to finally have something break the routine of his life, of his parents lives, and what will most likely be his children’s lives--marry someone wealthy, tend to your farm, have a few babies, and watch them do the same thing.Never leave this town--or if you do, it’s only for a moment, before you find out that the city is just as stifling and monotonous as the country, only different in the fact that it smells like human piss instead of horse shit.Before you find out that no matter where you go, you will never find anything exhilarating.

He’s not unhappy.He’s not.He tells himself that everyday.But the farther he walks, the more certain he becomes that he needs this, that this is the only solution to a quiet life.

Armie freezes.He heard something.He holds his breath, and waits for the sound to reappear.

And there it is: a soft but pungent whimpering, as if something is in terrible pain.He looks around; it sounds as if the noise is coming from right next to him, but there is nothing there.

“Hello?” he calls out.

The moaning stops.For a moment, there’s only silence, and Armie thinks that he may

have scared it away, that it disappeared.But then it speaks: “Hello?”

“Hi,” Armie says, fumbling for something to say.“My name is Armie Hammer.I’m a farmer.I own this land and I--”

“Can you help me?”

Armie nods frantically.“Yes.Yes, I can help you.I can’t see you.Where are you?It sounds like you’re right here.”

“I’m not.Keep walking. No, no--turn to your left.Yes, now walk.”

Armie follows the instructions.“Am I getting closer?”

“Yes.”

After a few moments of walking, he’s blinded.He squeezes his eyes shut, covers them with his hand, but the light still burns through.It’s as if someone dropped the sun directly in front of him.It burns so painfully that he’s tempted to turn around and run.

“God,” Armie said.“What are you?”

“My name is Timothée.”

Armie removes his hand from his eyes, opens them.He feels as if his eyes are going to melt, but the longer he stares, the more they adjust to the light.It’s still painful, but not unbearably so.

Before him is a man--or perhaps not.It’s shaped like a man, and it sounds like a man.But men don’t glow like this.Men aren’t coated in liquid fire, a bright, burning white-gold, so luminous and smooth that there aren’t even any visible features.He has no face, no texture, no body.He’s just a silhouette, an incandescent, watery silhouette.

The leaves on the trees around him have turned black and fallen off.The trees are charred.The ground sizzles where he walks.

And he hurts to look at, but Armie has never seen anything more beautiful.

So the prophecy is true: A star has fallen.

 


End file.
